It engenders an insect like
itself, of a spider-shape, and brings disease into the swarm. There is
another insect resembling the moth, called by some the 'pyraustes',
that flies about a lighted candle: this creature engenders a brood
full of a fine down. It is never stung by a bee, and can only be got
out of a hive by fumigation. A caterpillar also is engendered in
hives, of a species nicknamed the teredo, or 'borer', with which
creature the bee never interferes. Bees suffer most when flowers are
covered with mildew, or in seasons of drought.
All insects, without exception, die if they be smeared over with
oil; and they die all the more rapidly if you smear their head with
the oil and lay them out in the sun.
28
Variety in animal life may be produced by variety of locality:
thus in one place an animal will not be found at all, in another it
will be small, or short-lived, or will not thrive. Sometimes this sort
of difference is observed in closely adjacent districts. Thus, in
the territory of Miletus, in one district cicadas are found while
there are none in the district close adjoining; and in Cephalenia
there is a river on one side of which the cicada is found and not on
the other.
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